In the 1960s, Rushdoony wrote a tract “Christianity and Capitalism” for the Free Enterprise Department of the Coast Federal Savings & Loan Association. Coast was headed by businessman Joe Crail, author of another tract, “A Businessman’s Look at “Communism vs. Capitalism.” During this period there were continual attempts to harness widespread anti-communism to attempts to roll back the social policies of the New Deal, and even the idea of a “redistributive” income tax, seen as punishing the successful and denying them their just rewards.

In “Christianity and Capitalism” Rushdoony wrote:

“Thus, any attack on the idea of rewards and punishments is an attack on God’s order. Second, rewards and punishments presuppose liberty as basic to man’s condition. Man is free to strive, to compete, to work for rewards and to suffer penalties. Thus, any attack on these concepts is also an attack on liberty; it is an insistence that a leveling equality together with total controls is a better condition for man than liberty is or can be. St. Paul declared ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ (2 Cor. 3:17). God and liberty are inseparable.” (pp. 1-2)

According to Rushdoony, Free Market capitalism is a product of Christianity, “and in particular, of Puritanism which, more than any other faith, has furthered capitalization.” (p. 5). He asserts that before “the United States began its course of socialism and inflation,” (think New Deal) it had already “abandoned its historic Christian Position.” (p. 5). Unworthy Christians lead to bad economics.

Rushdoony argued that “Socialism is organized larceny,” because “like inflation, it takes from the haves to give to the have-nots. By destroying capital, it destroys progress and pushes society into disaster.” (p. 6). By extension, this logic applies to “Big Government” and taxation.

The Chalcedon Foundation, founded by Rushdoony, described itself in a version of that pamphlet republished in 2000, as condemning the “dissolution of family authority, abortion, confiscatory statism, injustice, and humanistic education.” “Confiscatory statism,” is such an elastic concept, no?

Gary North worked for Rushdoony at Chalcedon as a young man, before splitting over theological disputes (while splitting away with Rushdoony’s daughter who became North’s wife). According to North:

“I decided at age 18 that I would try to discover the relationship between the Bible and economic theory. I was persuaded by The Freeman that Mises had the correct approach: market freedom. But I had become a Christian at age 17, and I was convinced in 1960 that the Bible applies to all areas of life, including economics. I wanted to know if Mises' economics related to the Bible. My first published effort in this regard was my book, An Introduction to Christian Economics (1973).” ( http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north145.html)

In 1991 Australian Ian Hodge, wrote “Christian Economics: The Social Conditions for Wealth” for The Counsel of Chalcedon, a publication of the Chalcedon Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Georgia with Dr. Joseph C. Moorecraft, III as minister. It describes itself as “A Monthly Christian Magazine Applying the Bible to Every Aspect of Life.” Reconstuctionist Gary DeMar was a contributing editor, and Reconstructionist Greg Bahnsen wrote articles.

Hodge argues that it “is evident from the Bible that it is clearly wrong to make money and wealth out goal in life. But when our goal is God’s glory, then the pursuit of wealth as a necessary means to finance the extension of God’s kingdom on this earth, is a noble and worthy task.” (Vol. 13, No. 10, December 1991, p. 21).

Another publication promoting Dominionist and Reconstructionist ideas was Crosswinds: The Reformation Digest, published by the Coalition on Revival. In 1994 Dennis Peacocke, wrote “Understanding the Critical Difference Between Justice and Equality.” (Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1994-1995).

Peacocke states that “the Bible does not teach that all men are equal, and no amount of social legislation or economic restructuring through tax policy can change this reality.” (p. 45). According to Peacocke, God put within man “the urge to take dominion….” (p. 45). Apparently, this urge is made impotent by the welfare state and taxation. As Peacocke explains:

“Forced wealth distribution is inherently anti-family. It created dependence on government entitlements rather than on strong, covenantal family responsibilities. Civil government systematically undermines the family as God’s conduit of blessing when it takes wealth from those who create it and gives it to those who do not.” (p. 47.).

This same issue carries a special section on the “Economic Scene,” including these articles:

• E. Calvin Beisner, “Is There an Invisible Hand Helping the Poor?”
• E. Calvin Beisner, “Stewardship and the Free Market.”
• Alan Samson, “Inflation and the Quality of Character.”

“Is There an Invisible Hand Helping the Poor?” is answered by Beisner in the affirmative. The constructive invisible hand of the Free Market is guided by God’s plan, but there is a destructive invisible hand of the “welfare state.” Citing Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground (1984), Beisner claims the “burgeoning growth of major welfare programs and spending in the 1960s and 1970s” spread “debilitating behaviors encouraged by welfare programs” among Black Americans, and thus “did the invisible hand of the welfare state stop dead in its tracks and then reverse the progressive narrowing of the gap in income and employment between blacks and whites.” (p. 59). In this way issues such as institutional racism are swept aside and buried by the invisible hand of the Free Market.

Dominionism as a tendency within Christian evangelicalism developed in a synergistic way with the unregulated Free Market ideology promoted by conservatives after WWII and the Republican Party since the Reagan Revolution starting in 1980. Both tendencies share some of the same historic and intellectual roots, which can be traced by exploring back issues of the Freeman. It should be no surprise, then, that what on the surface seems like an unlikely alliance within the Republican Party—economic libertarians and Christian evangelicals—actually has many points of convergence.

See Also:

God, Calvin, and Social Welfare: A Series

Fundamentalists Embrace Darwin!

The Christian Right, Calvinism, and Free Market Ideology

Calvin, the Free Market, and Poverty